There has been a lot happening in the blogging world this week. I haven’t posted about them as yet so I thought I would do a summary for those who have missed these events. Enjoy 
Google dishes out PageRank penalties
The biggest story of the week is undoubtedly the news about Google dropping the PageRank of some of the most popular blogs and websites on the web. For example, ProBlogger went from a 6 to a 4 as did CopyBlogger and Blog Herald (Daniel from DBT has a good list here). Some have suggested that these sites have been selling links, others have suggested the sites were punished because they were part of a network however there are sites who have had their PageRank reduced and have done neither so no one is 100% certain of the reason.
I read a dozen or so posts about this earlier in the week and when I went looking for those posts to link in this post I found no less than 50 articles in less than 15 minutes. Clearly, Google has upset a lot of people! Thankfully, most people are not too bummed about it and many even think that this change is a good thing as PageRank has lost it’s value.
If you missed this whole debate then I recommend checking out some of the links below
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42 ,43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50
WidgetBucks
It’s been a strange week for WidgetBucks. First they email publishers about how their system has been improved (see here. here and here) and then ShoeMoney explained why they were being penalized by Google. Andy Beard had actually mentioned the reason a week or so before. In short, WidgetBucks had placed a text link back to their site in their widget.
I was really surprised to hear this. Didn’t anyone at WB know that if Google suddenly sees thousands of links to a brand new site they will think something is up and look into it.
WordPress Camp in Melbourne
Last but not least, Darren Rowse and Alister Cameron are 2 of the speakers who will be attending the WordPress Camp in Melbourne on Saturday 17th November.
Full details of this event can be found here.
The problem with Widgetbucks not ranking was 100% due to that redirect, not the hidden link
but surely if google sees thousands of links to a brand new site with the same anchor text it's going to think someone is trying to google bombing (eg. John Chow was punished for this technique)
My main problem with Widgetbucks is the referral situation. They promised money for every new referrals and it seems they wont be paying that.
They can't rank anything if they can't get to the page due to an endless loop. The same happened to DMOZ recently
I didnt know that happened to DMOZ. I had hoped that google were simply distancing themselves from them because its a corrupt out of date directory.
Kevin,
Not sure where you live, but it has just happened. Check it out.
Monika
Everyone gets their <a>google pagerank juice today..Some promoted some just got even worse!
Congrates on your PR4
Kev, BT is now at PR 4, Not sure if this is the end to the whole "drama"..but surely the guys must be working extra hours at Googleplex.
finally!!!…it took them long enough haha